


Heart Aches Fresh

by soupypictures



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Corellian Bloodstripe, Family, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-19 23:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13134303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soupypictures/pseuds/soupypictures
Summary: After losing comrades in the battle to destroy the Starkiller Base, Poe's survivor's guilt hits him hard. Marek understands better than Poe realizes.





	Heart Aches Fresh

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I've been working on this particular document since May, but the ideas began more than a year ago. I've always been curious about Han's two sets of 'stripes and couldn't pass up the chance to set them on Marek. But how'd he win them? Had to give him a sad backstory, didn't I?
> 
> 100% ignoring everything from The Last Jedi.

They pass like ships in the night, each on separate shifts completing task lists associated with moving bases. Four days after the remains of the Resistance fleet had returned to D’Qar, Marek had been in Poe’s company for a total of four hours, and Marek had been sleeping for half of those. By the looks of Poe in their two waking hours spent together -- packing their quarters, running diagnostics on Black One -- Poe hasn’t been sleeping at all. Marek has heard about his snappish run-ins with everyone from a grieving General Organa to old friends in maintenance. And since the assault, Poe hasn’t said more than a sentence to him at a time.

Poe is not handling his survivor’s guilt well.

The Resistance has fallen back to Yavin IV, using the ancient Massassi temples and the decrepit Alliance base until they can reorganize and reassess their position. General Organa gives them an option to take a short leave but Poe dismisses it out of hand. Watching Poe now is like looking into a mirror seven years ago.

Marek’s comm has gone off with a message from the medical wing. Poe had tripped coming down the ladder as he disembarked his X-wing, spraining his ankle. Marek finds him scowling in the clinic, an ancient 2-1B backed into the corner by a whistling BB-8, loyal to the end.

“They called you?” Poe grouses, slapping a bacta patch onto his ankle.

“It’s good to see you too. Of course they called me. You’re being a pain in the ass and I’m here to take care of it.” Marek can’t keep the frustration out of his voice.

“It’s just a sprain.”

“It is not only a sprain, Commander Dameron,” the droid interrupts. “You are suffering from exhaustion, situational depression, and anxiety in addition to the sprain. I am advising that you see a grief counselor and requiring that you be grounded for one standard week.”

There’s desperation in Poe’s eyes and voice. “You don’t have the authority to ground me --”

“I’m mandated to report your status to the General and she will enforce my advisement.”

“You can’t _keep_ me grounded --”

“But _I_ can,” Marek butts in. “Give me the rest of his bacta and I’ll take him home.”

“I’m not seeing a _counselor_ ,” Poe bites out, and Marek grits his teeth, taking the bacta patches from the 2-1B and glaring at BB-8, who rolls back with a mutinous blurp.

“Let’s go home.”

\---

Marek comms ahead to Kes Dameron to let them know they’re on their way. “He’s not well,” is all Marek says, and he thinks perhaps this isn’t the best circumstance for meeting Poe’s father, but they’re in the middle of a war and odds are that it could be the only circumstance they’ve got.

Poe hobbles his way into the house and heads straight for their bedroom, bypassing his father altogether. Marek watches him close the door behind himself and turns to find Kes Dameron leaning in the doorway to the kitchen. “You must be Sergeant Marek Antilles of Corellia.”

He tries not to think about the last time he’d done the whole “meet the parents” thing, but it’s hard not to draw contrasts. Seven years ago in a tidy little efficiency apartment in the heart of the city hardly big enough for them all to sit around the dining table. This house is spacious, there are trees visible through the windows, warm yellow light blankets every surface, and the look in Kes’ eyes is knowing, understanding, and just as war-weary as what Marek sees when he looks into the mirror. “I am. It’s good to meet you, Sergeant.”

Kes waves his hand and retreats into the kitchen. “It’s been a long time since I did anything worthy of that title. Call me Kes. Tea?”

Marek follows him in, mind stuck on Poe behind that closed bedroom door. “I’m worried about him,” he says, taking the mug of hot liquid offered to him. 

“He’s easy to worry about,” Kes says.

“It’s more than just the recklessness with his own life. That’s always been there and I can handle that. He’s pushing me away and thinks I don’t know what he’s going through.” He breaks off, hearing a door open and another close, and then the shower starting up. Time passes.

“My son is a lot like his mother was,” Kes says softly, staring into his mug. “His talent, his belief in his talent, his dedication to a cause. But in other ways, he is mine. He feels deeply, and to the exclusion of others. Shara ... she had a hard time with that. Didn’t understand it in me, and it baffled her in him.” He looks up at Marek and leans back in his chair. “I heard that the Resistance has suffered substantial losses.”

Marek nods. “We have. Poe has. His friends are gone. He feels responsible for them. And he is, but they made a choice and no one sugar-coated it for them. He thinks he should be able to save everyone and everything and when he can’t it’s like it destroys him.”

“Do you know what he’s going through?” Kes asks.

“Of course, they were my friends too --”

“Not losing friends. We’ve all lost friends. But do you know what it’s like to lose a friend because of your own actions? Because of choices you’ve made that affect them?”

Marek looks away from those kind dark eyes. “Yes,” he answers, admitting it for the first time out loud.

“Does he know?”

He shakes his head, heart pounding. 

“It might be time to tell him, Sergeant.”

Marek knows this is true but he still doesn’t feel ready. He wants to ask Kes why he never moved on after his wife died, he wants to analyze how they’re different and maybe why, and square the feelings he had before with what he knows he feels for Poe. He won’t ask, they’ve only just met, and all they have in common is a man they both love and the soldier’s experience.

Kes stands from the table and clears their mugs. Night is falling and Marek feels the exhaustion of war tugging at his bones. Kes turns, a thoughtful expression turning his features softer. “That’s when you got your Bloodstripe, isn’t it? When you lost your friends?”

He nods an affirmative, even though it’s not quite right. It’s close enough, and the story everyone knows at home, anyway.

“I’m sorry, Marek.” It’s not the empty apology he heard over and over seven years ago. It’s one of understanding, of _I’ve been there too_. Marek knows what he has to do now, as painful as he know it will be. The shower stops.

“I didn’t have time to sheet the bed, there’s a closet in the hallway with clean ones,” Kes says gently, and Marek stands when the refresher door opens.

He pulls a set of bed linens from the hermetically sealed closet in the hallway. “Don’t get in bed yet, let me change the sheets first,” he says, entering the bedroom. They’d be in barracks at the base if Poe hadn’t been born and raised on this planet, and despite everything, Marek is looking forward to a night in this bed.

Poe is leaning against the wall and staring out the window as Marek puts the clean sheets on their bed, the largest space they’ve had to sleep since they’ve been together. “You should take one,” Poe suggests, eyes locked on the tree outside his room. “It’s a great shower.”

“I’ll get one later. We’re talking now.”

“Talking isn’t going to help.”

“It’s not going to hurt.”

“You don’t _understand_ ,” Poe spits out, and Marek takes a step back at the force of his conviction. “I don’t mean that,” Poe apologizes immediately. “I’m just --”

“No, I understand.” 

“They were your friends, too. I know.”

“No, not that. I mean yes, they were. But I’m telling you -- I understand this exactly.” _Worse, even. Because you haven’t lost me._

“But you weren’t _there_.” Poe sinks down to sit on the edge of the bed. “I feel responsible for them. You think you get it, but ... you can’t.”

Marek had maintained every one of those now-destroyed snubfighters. He’d eaten meals with all of the pilots. He knew their stories, heard them speak about their families. But he hadn’t flown into combat with them, and hadn’t had to bear the responsibility for keeping them alive in the heat of battle. None of them died because of something he missed on the ground. 

“My life didn’t start when I joined up,” he says, sitting down on the bed next to Poe, eyes locked on the holo of Poe’s parents hanging on the wall. “Seven years ago I earned my Bloodstripe.” In his peripheral vision Marek can see Poe looking at him, but Marek keeps his gaze forward. He can’t look at Poe while he tells this part of his personal history. “I wasn’t even on duty at the time. _We_ weren’t on duty. We were out, at some new club. I’d been living in the city for three years but it all felt so new, Lumin so far away.” Marek shakes his head. “Things were changing. My uncle was Corellia-First. Still is. Resented how the Rebellion took everyone he loved off-planet. And now, hates that I’m out here. But what he hates more than that is the Human League, because we’ve always had non-humans around. That’s part of Corellia. He got it. But the Human League ... they didn’t.

“Caz was from Coronet City. From the slums, really, the local kid made good. He knew everyone. Spice dealers, _everyone_. Didn’t have much of a family growing up, brought me home to this elderly couple who weren’t his blood but found him when he was twelve. CorSec was his family, he’d say whenever it came up.” He hasn’t spoken Caz’s name out loud in seven years. “ _I_ was his family.”

Poe’s breath catches, taking Marek’s left hand in both of his own.

Marek rushes through the rest, pushing through the lump in his throat. He hasn’t said any of this since he was debriefed that night. “It was a terrorist attack. They were executing non-humans every half hour that CorSec wasn’t releasing one of their thugs. When it was all said and done, thirty-four civilians were dead.”

“And Caz,” Poe murmurs. 

Marek nods vigorously as the tears leak out of his eyes. “Caz too. His ‘stripe was first class.” A sentence he’s never said in his life. More of them -- “They say you _win_ these ‘stripes. Win them, like it’s a game. What did Caz win? What did _I_ win? He was everything to me. _Everything_. And this fucking ‘stripe that I have to put on every time I go back, that everyone else is so proud of me for, it’s just a reminder that I couldn’t save him.”

“I’m so sorry.”

And Marek feels guilty even now, guilt on top of guilt. _I shouldn’t be putting this on him now, he’s hurting so much_. “No one knew.” He doesn’t say _why_ no one knew. It doesn’t matter anymore. It didn’t matter then. “For seven years I’ve just carried it with me. I should have talked to someone. _You_ need to talk to someone. It doesn’t have to be me. It could be your father, or a counselor, or BB-8. I can’t stand the thought of you feeling like this. You can’t shoulder this burden alone. It’s not just losing friends. It’s losing friends and being in this environment.” He waves his free hand around, reducing their rebellion efforts to a flippant gesture. “We don’t have time to process. You can’t go on like this.”

“They need me,” Poe whispers.

“We’re in a holding pattern for the foreseeable future. The General said that the destruction of Hosnian Prime has seen an uptick in our recruits. We can be spared for a week.” Marek turns to Poe, finally. “They need you healthy. _I_ need you healthy. You have to use this time.”

Poe nods and takes Marek by the shoulders to pull him into a hug. “Stay with me?”

Marek holds Poe to him tightly. “Of course.”

\--

He lies awake later, Poe passed out in the exhausted sleep of the perpetually on edge finally in a secure location. They’d eaten dinner with Kes, a homemade meal from Poe’s childhood from the way Poe’s eyes lit up when it was put on the table. It was good, hot and filling and full of flavor. Marek allowed himself the fleeting thought of _we could have this all the time if we just stopped_. 

Then Kes told them a story from his days in the Rebel Alliance, a comedic tale about mistaken identities that pulled an unexpected laugh from Poe, and Marek knew, bone-deep, that as long as Poe was fighting, Marek would be too. 

He thinks about Caz. His heart aches fresh and it hits him like jumping to hyperspace with a malfunctioning grav unit. The dehumidifier kicks on and masks his shaky gasp as he lets himself grieve. Tears leak from his eyes and he stays quiet enough that Poe sleeps through it. The same phrases roll over in his mind, _Caz, I’m sorry_ and _It’s all my fault_ and _I can’t survive if it happens again_.

It’s long minutes that he has the heels of his hands pressed into this eye sockets and he knows in the morning it will be clear to all in the house that he hadn’t slept unbothered. Eventually his sobs subside and he’s able to breathe. Poe’s still asleep, turned away from Marek on his side. Marek tucks himself up behind him, wipes his face against the pillow before sliding his arm around Poe’s torso and hugging him close. “Please don’t die,” he whispers into the nape of Poe’s neck. He’s warm and alive against Marek’s body, breathing soundly and whole. _Let me keep him_ , he prays.

**Author's Note:**

> Eventually I'll get Poe to Corellia to meet the Antilles clan.


End file.
